Word Play (Quilts)

In honor of the release of the Unruly Quilters new book Word Play Quilts, December 7th has been 'officially' declared "International Tonya Ricucci Day."

Under her former covert code name of LazyGal Tonya, Tonya Ricucci is the guerrilla commander of the underground "Alphabet Liberation Front."

Clad in wild shirts, with a cat under each arm (and one wrapped in a quilt), Tonya is the one who opened the doors to the releasing of the entire ABC Nation.

Single handedly, with the cheering on of Queen Bonnie of Quiltville and the lovely lady, Clare...Duchess of Dordogne, (and her ladies in waiting, too numerous to count), she freed first the Upper Case, and then the Lower Case, and then...the period, the comma, the question mark, and the exclamation point!

"Free at last, free at last" the untethered letters proclaimed. They jumped off their perfectly cut and perfectly lined foolscap and off into uncut, and unlined horizons.

Once the horizon was changed, even the liberated stars began to fall out of alignment....and the escaping celestial chords began to chime to a different key, and in a new and full array of rainbow brite colors.....the quilting world was forever changed, once more.

The stars and the Asterisks, the houses and the Wonkytowns, and the amazing holidays..Halloween, Hallowistmas, and Christmas and everything, and everybody, began to march to a different drummer. We began to sew with a different palette and the rainbows opened up in the sky and the tones, and the hues began to warm up....and and then suddenly....the color orange became the new neutral.

Tonya had it all sewn up in a bag and the bag was a gift to the liberated who were pointless, and hoopless, and out of line, at last.

LazyLady Tonya wasn't lazy anymore. NewandVeryBusyLady Tonya began to create a new vision. One that did not involve jumping through hoops, or even quilting with one, for anybody.

The now proclaimed, UnrulyOne, not only gave us the UnRuly Piecing Basics but as her ladies staggered into uneven formation, the Liberation Front was filled with H-O-P-E once more.

Quilters had a cause and a be-cause at last.

Hoopless, but not hapless, she showed up in our Houses, our Homes even our Pantry and it was she, who made ugly fun again. She took a leap and a bound, and began her plan of a 2010 Liberation of the Amish.

One by one, we began ripping off our perfect points and we burned them in the cataclysmic fires of the future of freedom. Looking disdainfully at the meeting of great seams, we knocked them all wonky and askew.

"Woo Hoo!" we hollered, as the Wonky Women united. We built wonky houses, and wonky villages, wonky forests that hid the wonky trees, wonky cats and dogs,wonky butterflies and birds, wonky flowers and fish. Our own imaginations ignited, and we set off on our own paths of creative de- and re- construction.

It didn't matter if we could free-piece letters. It didn't matter if we couldn't immediately let go of the rules and regulations. What mattered is we now knew we didn't have to play by any rules. We just were given permission to play ,? ; : and !.

Thanks Tonya! For all you did for the Liberation of the Alphabet Nation, your creation of the Liberated Front, and for your inspiration for today's Word Play fun!

And Clare Worthy, the Duchess of Dordogne who proclaimed today as Tonya Ricucci, the Unruly Quilter Day, asks:

"How did Tonya, personally inspire each of you?"

I became a Wonky Woman and a Happy Free-Piecing Fool.

I was inspired by her AAQI HOPE Challenge, to create the AAQI Liberated Quilting Challenge and invited by Clare to co-moderate Tonya's blog Liberated Quilting.

I was inspired to collect, and to create, the first Liberated Quilting: Blocks, Letters, Patterns and Tutorials list.

And I was inspired to say...the heck, with it all. If your blog post that is scheduled to officially post on Tuesday, December 7...in honor of "International Tonya Ricucci Day"...self publishes on Monday, December 6th.....I give a big sigh...and go ahead and allow its liberation. After all...I've always been spatially challenged. So, if a blog can publish by itself...can it write its own posts, too ;)

Thanks for all of the cat hair Tonya. Thanks for the extra hours in my sewing room, the huge mess on the sewing room floor, and for the husband who now wonders if I am ever coming downstairs again.


LINKS:
Liberated Quilting
Liberated Quilting Challenge
Liberated Quilting: Free Patterns, Blocks, and Tutorials
Word Play (Quilts)